Slave Trade - 1. Overview and Britain's role

Transatlantic Trade - introduction

From ancient times, a section of the population were forced to labour unpaid and treated as property. They were the slaves and the practice occurs in the texts of Judaism. Islam and Christianity. Other societies also used slaves - the Aztecs, Mayans, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. The word 'slave' comes from 'slav', enslaved people of Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages.

The Transatlantic Slave Trade, however, was unique in human history, excelling anything before it in scale, brutality and organisation. Between 1450 and 1850, at least 12 million Africans were shipped from Africa across the Atlantic to colonies in North and south America, and the West Indies. Of these Africans, 80% (at least 7m) were exported during the 18th century, 10-20% dying on the way. This was the notorious Middle Passage. Altogether some 25 millions were uprooted from Africa, many dying on the way - a figure comparable with the entire population of England and France at the time.

Ships working the Triangular started and finished in European ports. They carried muskets, manufactured goods, copper, glassware and cloth. They traded them for slaves who were loaded into ships in extremely cramped conditions and given only minimal food and water.

Colonial slavery was used by early European capitalists to exploit labour cheaply and intensively. Labour was short in the New World. The native Indians could not withstand the brutal conditions and the diseases brought by the European migrants. Europe was developing a taste for sugar and its cultivation needed a hot climate and intensive labour. So slaves were sold to dealers and passed onto the plantation owners. Sugar, cotton, coffee, tobacco, rice and rum from the Caribbean and the southern states of America were loaded onto ships which then returned to Europe, completing the Triangle.

Britain's role

First to introduce slave labour were the Portuguese and then the Spanish but it was Britain who used slave labour systematically to build its western trade and home industries. Some dates:

- 1562 Sir John Hawkins set out on the first English slaving expedition.

- 1619 first cargo of Africans supplied (by a Spanish ship) to English settlers in Jamestown, VIrginia

- 1625 first English settlement on Barbados

- 1631 group of London merchants granted monopoly on Guinea trade

- 1655 Jamaica taken over as colony

- 1672 Royal Africa Company granted charter to trade on west African coast and carry slaves to the Americas.

This Company held the trade monopoly until 1698, setting up trading posts on the west African coast. It laid down that the 'standard space per slave' was 5 ft long, 11 inches wide and 23 inches high for a voyage lasting 9 to 10 months. One in 6 slaves died on the way.

British Slave Ports  

The slave trade was based at Bristol and Liverpool. Among lesser ports involved was Glasgow.
From 1698, Bristol served as Britain's main slaving port for some 50 years. It became England's second city after London. In the 1730s, there were up to 50 sailings a year, taking cheap manufactured goods to West Africa to be bartered for slaves. As many as 17,000 slaves were transported annually to the West Indies, yielding an average profit of around £7000, a massive sum those days. The slave merchants and their associates could live luxurious lifestyles in sumptuous mansions with liveried servants - the fruit of wealth made form the sufferings of the slaves bought and sold by the Bristol merchants.
Bristol's Theatre Royal, second oldest working theatre in England, was built by funding from investors whose wealth could be traced to the slave trade. Today, the progeny of these families still have  silver token (issued to the original benefactors), that guarantees a seat at any performance at the theatre.

In Bristol, the church itself did not hesitate to “turn the Penny” from the slave trade. There were as many as 84 Quaker slave traders, among them Alexander and David Barclay - who later founded today’s Barclays Bank.  Rev Raymund Harris (commissioned by Liverpool Council to justify slavery) dutifully wrote that the trade was “in perfect harmony with the principles of the Word of God ...” and received £100 for his pamphlet.

Liverpool could taken larger ships and was more efficiently managed. In Liverpool, there were 10 large merchant houses engaged in the slave trade and 349 smaller firms. “Shop windows displayed shining chains and manacles, devices to force open the mouths of slaves who refused to eat, neck rings, thumb screws and other implements of torment and oppression...” [Ref 1]

By the end of 18th century, Liverpool took over 60% of the British trade and 40% of European trade. It made over £12 million in 1783-93  from 878 voyages and the sale of 300,000 slaves. In Liverpool's Sefton Park, grateful merchants erected a statue to Columbus with the inscription: "The discoverer of America was the maker of Liverpool."

One of Liverpool’s slave captains was John Newton. He is said to have some religious background  and in the 1750s began to study to become a priest. But he continued to run his slave ship, holding prayers on board as well as doing Sunday meditation or Bible reading in private. But this did not stop him from chaining his slaves on the ship or using thumb screws or neck yokes. Newton came to write a number of well-known hymns, including Amazing Grace and How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds. He ended up as Rector of a London parish.

Basil Creese writes [Ref 4]: "The city's breathtaking architecture stands as a vivid testimony of its affluence in the 18th and 19th centuries. Every brick was laid with the blood and sinew of slaves. Streets like Tarleton, Earle, Bold, Cunliffe and Gildart in the city centre are named after prominent slave merchants. The Bluecoats School, founded and funded by merchants, is now an arts centre and the exterior of the town hall bears elaborate stone carved scenes with black slaves.
"Rodney Street boasts a grand house with a blue plaque on the wall announcing the birthplace of William Ewart Gladstone, the four times Liberal Prime Minister. It was his father John who made a huge fortune from his 60 slave estates and over 10,000 slaves in Barbados and Jamaica. Young Gladstone's first speech was in defence of slavery on his father's estates."

Yasmin Alibhai Brown, columnist for the Independent (27 Nov 2006) wrote:
"Britain reaped fortunes from buying and selling Africans – who were chained, starved, mutilated, beaten, burnt, whipped, raped, killed or forced to die during the Atlantic crossing. Historian Tristram Hunt says that every wealthy, old British institution, including the monarchy, Oxbridge and the churches, has blood on their solid capital foundations."

Slave revolts and writings

The medical profession also provided pseudo-scientific support to the slave trade. Instead of condemning the slave state, new diagnostic labels were invented: drapetomania was the ‘irrational’ desire of slaves to run away while pysaethesia ethiopica referred to the unruly behaviour of slaves.

A number of slaves came to write about their experiences after they were freed. One of the best known was Olaudah Equiano who wrote his life story in 1789 when he was 45. He had been sold into slavery from West Africa, transported to Barbados where he was bought by Captain Pascal of the English Navy. After several years of service to Pascal, he was sold to another owner. Equiano struggled to earn his freedom. He eventually travelled to London where Pascal’s female relatives put him up and got him employed. He then found time to write his story.

Equiano wrote about the beatings given to slaves by their ‘Christian masters’ and how the ‘Christian’ sailors raped slave girls as young as ten. He recalled incidents in which he was repeatedly cheated or abused by “these tender Christian depredators”. He attended church services and sought to become a missionary. But the Bishop of London “refused to ordain me”.

Another black writer was Ottobah Cugoano He slaved in Grenada, was later brought to England and freed in 1772. He wrote on the Evil of Slavery in 1787. He recounts how the slaves were stripped on their arrival in the colonies for “brutal examination” by the planters and how family pleas not to be separated were ignored.

Other writers of the 18th century include James  Gronniosaw who wrote his life story in 1770; black female slave Phyllis Wheatley known for her Poems on Various Subjects (1773) and Ignatius Sancho who had his letters (written on board a slaveship) published in 1782.

Legacy of Racism

By 1800, there were 600,000 slaves in the British West Indies, another 150,000 in other British colonies, 850,000 slaves in the United States, about a 1.5 million in Brazil and around 250,000 in Spanish America.These huge numbers meant a constant drain on Africa’s productive resources, leading to progressive underdevelopment and eventual subjugation by European colonisers.

Slavery had existed in early times but the slaves comprised a distinct class who could achieve high positions after being freed. Colonial slavery, on the other hand, was both racist and hereditary especially in the plantations. It has left an enduring legacy of racism which continues to dominate western outlook and relations with people of colour.

References

1. David Haslam, Race for the MIllennium , Church House Publishing (1996)

2. James Walvin, Fruits of Empire, Macmillan (1997)
3. Robin Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery, Verso (1998)

4. Basil Creese, Of human bondage,  Tribune (weekly) 12 Jan 2007